Can anyone help with advice for this drive.

This drive came in as a no spin. We managed to find a donor drive a close a match as possible WD800JD-08LSA0. We backed up the mods off the donor drive. We then swapped PCB's and uploaded mod 11 to the data recovery drive. This drive now comes ready and we can see all details such as S/N, LBA, Firmware, SPT. We can also scan the mods which are all good. what we cannot do is gain access to the DA of the drive. We get read errors on all sectors.
We have followed all the advice received from Salvation data, they now say there is no more they can advise, so try to get advice on forum.

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regards

John - http://www.dq-int.co.uk

This should be a simple case of swap the ROM on the donor drive with the old ROM. No firmware uploads are needed.

It sounds like you've got a bad translator. Can Salvation fix it? PC3000 can.

Jon

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http://www.datasaversllc.com

what did u got on ATA registers? IDNF;ABRT ?

Like jono said, looks like translator corruption, did u check SA structure?

Thanks for your replies,

We have checked all the modules with Salvation data and they are all okay. Jono you mentioned using original rom from original PCB, did you mean physically swap or by using salvation data to download rom and upload to new PCB.
We have only had salvation data for approx two months and in that time we have not been able to confirm their download and upload rom part of the software actually works.

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regards

John - http://www.dq-int.co.uk

ROM programming in lieu of physical ROM replacement is perfectly fine. I don't doubt Salvation's ability to reprogram the ROM. Use of the wrong ROM has different symptoms than you describe.

Again . . . can the Salvation tool regenerate the translator?

Jon

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http://www.datasaversllc.com

We uploaded the original ROM to a donor PCB and now that PCB does not spin the drive (Just as the original PCB did not spin the drive).

I asked Salvationdata about a translator regenerator and they pointed me towards the HDD Rebuild command. It is not clear what this did but it took a few seconds (maybe 30) and said complete but the drive was still exactly the same.

Sometimes the software uses different words for processes but I don't know if they allow regenerating the translator. Is the translator just a module in the SA or is it more than that?

John.

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regards

John - http://www.dq-int.co.uk

John,

A corrupt ROM will cause a WD not to spin. Apparently by reprogramming, the corruption was simply moved from one ROM to the other. The fact that you can accurately read your drive's passport suggests that you have a suitable replacement.

For WD Marvel drives, the translator modules are 31h & 32h. For non-Marvel drives the firmware modules are 20h & 25h. When a translator is damaged, sometimes one or both of these modules test bad.

This translator modules work in conjunction with the PLIST module. Rebuilding the translator is a PROCESS, in which the defects in the PLIST are mapped out.

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http://www.datasaversllc.com

Why didn't you just swap the ROM chip at the start? For a company claiming to perform data recovery from the early 90's, it seems strange you didn't do this.

HDD Rebuild = Translator regeneration ( HD Doctor for WD )

We are trying to use this kit to negate the need to keep desoldering and resoldering ROM chips all day. Thanks unknown20010, nobody could tell us that.

We are going to try these suggestions again and then post the results.

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regards

John - http://www.dq-int.co.uk

compare the rom on the pcb with the rom you saved from the
original pcb. to see if you got a good upload.

if you didn't get a good upload , you may have to remove the rom
to program it . WD drives don't like to work if the rom is very corrupt.

Next time it would really help if you post what kind of errors you get - INF, ABR, UNC, AMNF or timeouts.
It's really important to better understand the problem.

It's easier to just swap the chips than it is to go through and reprogram them. Anyone with the right equipment and even half decent soldering skills should be able to swap them successfully in less than a minute.

Thanks Starling, we will do that in the future. I will put the drive on and check the registers and post them here. And thanks Gtd, It seems like that is the best option. We did swap loads of these chips and had good success but thought this kit would save us some effort.

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regards

John - http://www.dq-int.co.uk

So,
Any Outcome ......

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Regards
Amarbir S Dhillon , Chandigarh Data Recovery Labs [India]
Logical,Semi Physical And Physical Data Recovery
Website-> http://www.chandigarhdatarecovery.com

Hi Amarbir,

The HDD Rebuild has still failed although all modules are good. Any ideas.

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regards

John - http://www.dq-int.co.uk

do you get ( IDNF ) when you scanned the drive ?

We don't get IDNF when we scan the drive, all we get in MHDD is ABRT on every sector.

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regards

John - http://www.dq-int.co.uk

hi,

Are you sure, it is not a security issue?

Regards,
Janos

is it take a long time to detect ?